Mum has reached a point in her career where she's got enough of a following to be able to open up a boutique. She's got kind of a knack for real estate (she bought her salon pretty cheap) so it wasn't long before she found a place to set up shop.So she did. It was such a dump when she bought it. I suppose that's why it was so cheap.

But she worked hard at it and now it looks amazing. A place where someone might actually want to shop!

Dad is looking for a new job too. He's still at his old job but he's hated it for years and is only now realising just how much. Grandpa is trying to get him to become a teacher. Grandpa would probably have everyone become a teacher if it was up to him!

So academics are big in this house, as you can imagine, with both my grandparents being teachers. I think they're still a little disappointed that of their three kids, only my uncle James graduated from college. The pressure is on us grandchildren now - they're both always trying to get Malcolm and me to consider career options and avenues for further study!

Malcolm's got his whole life mapped out, at only 12!

He's already decided he's going to medical school and he talks about it all the time.

He found our great-grandpa's old medical journals and he spends hours poring over them. I figure they must be kind of out of date now but it doesn't seem to bother Malcolm. He says it'll give him a good grounding!

Me though? I really don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up. Make a lot of money? That's about the only idea I have. Right now, I'm babysitting. That makes a little money, but not much. I just hang out with my friends for now, usually Matilda. It's weird how Malcolm has it all figured out and I'm three years older than him and have no clue.

I'm not jealous of him or anything though - Malcolm is not bad, as far as younger brothers go and we get along pretty well.

Even when he gives me crap about my pimples, it's in good fun. Besides, I plan on paying him back for that once it's his turn for zits!

It's Malcolm who cooks for us most nights. Mum and Dad are busy at work, so he kind of took over.

We were all a little scared to try the food the first time but he knows what he's doing in the kitchen, somehow...at least with simple things like macaroni and cheese.

I wish Malcolm would flirt with Matilda a little less, preferably not at all. Some of the stuff he comes out with...I don't know where he gets it!

Matilda's 16. She's not going to be dating any 12 year-olds!

I don't really know if Malcolm is even interested in girls yet. He hangs out with his friend Susannah a lot but there's nothing going on there.

I think he's just kind of a show-off. If Matilda actually accepted one of his advances, he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He's all talk.

Matilda isn't interested in dating anybody right now anyway, because she's in mourning over Troy. She's had the biggest crush on him since she was 13 and we saw him with Josie Benton at the mall last weekend.

At first, she was angry at me, because Troy is my cousin and I didn't tell her! I didn't know! I would have told her if I did. Honestly, Troy is only my cousin in a technical sense. The paternal side of Dad's family have never had much to do with him, so neither have I.

She apologised for lashing out at me, once she finally believed me. Matilda is still really bummed though.

She lost her appetite for lunch, probably because she could see Troy and Josie flirting out of the corner of her eye. I don't know if they even noticed us.

Not having a boyfriend is really starting to suck.

I wonder if a boyfriend would ward off some of the creepers we get hanging around us when we go out.

I don't want to go out with just anybody though, so I guess I'll have to wait to find out. Matilda and I have a lot of fun together anyway.

Thank goodness I have my driver's license now and we can go out wherever we want. Sometimes, we were stuck hanging out in either my bedroom or Matilda's before that.

That used to be okay, except her dad has a girlfriend now and she's always over. I've never actually spoken to her but Matilda can't stand her. I think she'd probably hate anyone her dad dated though.

I'm pretty lucky to still have both my parents...even when they're being all gross and lovey dovey together!

It feels like forever since I've done a real update! I've been busy this week, so I've been doing stuff I don't need to pay much attention to, like the custom content posts.

Naomi's shop is still nameless. I was Googling for the translation of the word "fashion" in a bunch of languages and it turns out that it's "mode" or "moda" in a whole assload of them! I might still go with some variation on that, but I'm still thinking. Right now, it's called Betty's Used Clothing, which is probably not the image Naomi is going for!

I have no idea what I want Owen to do for a living. Nothing that's popping up on the computer, that's for sure!

So Matilda kind of ended up taking over this update but you guys know I love her! I wanted to tie up the Troy thing before she headed off to college. He'll be gone by the time she gets there and I wanted her to have time to get over her crush. She still spins up a lot of "Talk to Troy" and "Play with Troy" wants (she can't spin up romantic ones, because of the teen/adult thing). Then I remembered how Claudio had started up a little romance with Virginia Watkins on a community lot, and I wanted to deal with that too.

There's nothing happening on the boy front for poor Adrienne. I hope I can find her someone once she gets to college, at least. Malcolm's still too young. Maybe next year he can date. He's not spinning up any romantic wants for anyone, although Susannah would like to ask him out on a date (specifically). Well...we'll see!

Adrienne's biological grandfather was Galen but seeing Owen has always seen Julian as his father, Julian is also Adrienne's paternal grandfather figure.

Tessa, oh, gosh, Angelo! Yeah, I don't know how much Malcolm and Angelo have in common. Malcolm has spun up the want to go on a date but he's yet to show any interest in any girls, apart from Matilda. And I think the unattainability factor is probably the draw card there!

Adrienne is fine without a boyfriend. She's spun up the want for a date and her first kiss, but again, no specific wants. I think she knows she doesn't actually need a boyfriend right now - it's just something that would be nice.

Sari, thanks! I really love Naomi's shop too. I'm terrible at thinking up business names and I always think I'm so clever when I think up anything even slightly out of the ordinary!

I'm afraid Adrienne might go crazy once she hits college, like Claudia did! She calmed down though and Adrienne is Romance, so she'd probably enjoy that anyway. ;)

Matilda will definitely go to college, possibly on full scholarship (she's super-skilled but I can't remember how skilled right now!). She's due to start college Summer 2024, which is the middle of next round.

Astrid, ha, yes, German was one of the languages I checked! I only knew the word in English, French and Italian. "Boutique" is the word we use here for designer fashion stores too.

And I'm not creative either, so you're not alone there! But I do like to work the Sims' first names into their business names sometimes. Naomi means "pleasant" in Hebrew, so I may do something with that too. Lots of vague ideas, it's just a matter of putting them into practice and coming up with an actual name!

I read this last night but didn't get a chance to comment. Naomi's transformation of her shop is really neat to see. I'll think about it, but I'm sure you'll come up with something really good in the end.

About Adrienne's boy drought, do you have Pescado's fix/mod that prevents the game from generating townies? Or is there just no one she likes? I seem to remember you don't have Pescado's mods. Anyway, I was wondering what you think of generating a batch of downtownies if you are getting low on them. If your overall character file number is still well below 1000, is that "safe" for your game?

Naomi's shop looks a lot better. Poor Matilda, seeing your crush make out with someone else isn't the best feeling in the world. Have we seen Matilda's dad before? He looks cute from the profile view.

Sometimes when I'm naming, I take the name-ie Fashion-and switch the letters about-ie Ash Fion, Noihsaf, or Noi Fash or add accent marks-ie Fa'Shion. Oh, a thersarus is pretty handy too, you can always google translations for some of the other words that mean fashion-ie style, etc.

Francesca, yeah, I'm still thinking! Naomi's shop will be in today's update as well and I'm still avoiding referring to it by name! LOL.

I actually do have the no townie regen hack but I'll leave it in. If I get really desperate for townies, I'd rather make my own so I can control a) the looks and b) the gender and age balance. My luck would be I'd take out the mod and get a bunch of females!

Apple Valley, LOL, ha, no deaths, thank goodness! My titles lately have been at least tangentially related to the updates but this one was pretty random!

Matilda is pretty bummed about Troy, the poor girl. I don't think you've seen Matilda's dad in an update before, except perhaps in the background on a community lot or something. You can see him front on in the Playable NPCs post in the sidebar though.

More good name ideas! I'm totally going to be thinking about this at lunch time at work today! ;)

Laura, yeah, I think Angelo would know exactly what to do with Matilda if he flirted with her and she was into it!

I really want to start putting more thought into my Sims' careers. If they don't have a career-related LTW, it's almost random what career they end up in!

I think Adrienne is cooler with the no boyfriend thing than Tessa. Tessa is driving me nuts with her constant wants for dating, flirting and slow dancing!

I love Matilda so much. I didn't think I would when I first created her and put her in the adoption pool. But I do. I'm so excited to play her for real at college.

Owen and Naomi seem pretty happy to be monogamous! They're odd Romance Sims. Owen's Popularity/Romance and besides his fling with Anna in college, has never really strayed. And he rolled up a marriage want, which I didn't realise was so momentous back then! And Naomi barely acts like a Romance Sim at all. It must be because she's so shy.

I love Matilda and I'm sad to see her get her heart broken by finding Troy and Josie together. :( But it's okay, Matilda, there will be other boys. And for Adrienne too. LOL at Malcolm and his crush. He may be trouble when he actually takes a bigger interest in girls. ;)

Up and coming young ones, lol! Comparing Malcolm to Angelo, that's classic. It's not unusual for a young boy to fancy himself some sort of a stud just out of the box. So it's cute he wants to go on a date but not with anyone specific. He just wants to rack up his XP.

And I love the friendship between Adrienne and Matilda! Matilda did take over a little bit, but I just love that most of the pics had the two girls hanging out together.

Lunar, I've come across more than one 12 year-old who thinks he's quite the stud!

I love writing about girlfriends and that sort of relationship. It's a lot of fun and I love watching it develop as the Sims get older. Like Araminta and Magdalena - I love that those two have been friends since they were kids.

Poor Malcolm. He had a little more luck (thought not with Matilda) in today's high school update, fortunately for him. I don't know why he was so keen on Matilda. They have negative chemistry. It's kind of the same thing I had happening with Matilda and Troy. They had negative chemistry too but Matilda was SO into him!